What C18 H24 O2 Can Do To A Man
by akg.writes
Summary: FPS post-ep, Scully's POV.... How did Saint Scully the Enigmatic handle her foray into the REAL boys' club?


The Chemical Abstracts Service has It listed as the ever creative 58-22-0. The U.S. Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances calls It XA3030000. It could be called anything from Androst-4-en-3-one to 17beta-Hydroxyandrost-4-en-3-one depending on which anal-retentive organic chemistry professor is asked. Its MSDS calls It not only a carcinogen, but an eye irritant, a skin irritant, a gastrointestinal irritant, and a respiratory irritant. 

I, Dana Katherine Scully, M.D., can personally vouch for the "irritant" part.

As an unassuming white powder, Its freezing/melting point is somewhere between one- hundred-fifty-two and one-hundred-fifty-six degrees Celsius.

Put that shit in a man and he melts at the first sight of a sword-wielding cyber-babe with stilettos from hell and large, ahem, guns.

Its MSDS says It's stable at normal temperatures and pressures.

Their concept of "normal" must be based on Alpha Centauri's photosphere because I have yet to meet a stable man here on Earth.

I have also, in the past few hours, cultivated my own personal theory regarding Its role in human society. Just as the cultural institution of marriage equalizes the biological disparity between the reproductive capabilities of males and females, so does this substance equalize the sexes. As Man becomes essentially incapacitated by good ole 58-22-0/XA3030000, as all higher brain functions cease and he is reduced to an entirely worthless mound of forgotten limbs and neglected reasoning skills, he becomes a burden to Woman... such an incredible burden to Woman that she who is subjected to this travesty of evolution for any notable length of time will herself be transformed from an otherwise grounded, clearheaded individual into a highly incendiary biological vat of frustration, vexation, and Ill Will Towards Men.

Did I mention that It's a fucking irritant?

I would have preferred never to have even thought of the Gunmen as producing 58-22-0, let alone prone to thinking with It, Frohike's porn addiction notwithstanding. Frankly, the thought still disturbs me. If anything, they are the very antithesis of It. And yet off they went like digital swashbucklers, an uninspired interpretation of Aramis, Athos and Porthos, having forgotten that they are a far cry better at constructing algorithms than wielding rapid-fire lasers.

And of course, I can't forget D'Artagnan, he with the fastest swash and biggest buckle.

Except he probably couldn't even spell algorithm.

Oh yes... Mulder. I have no doubt in my mind that he was waiting, just waiting, for the opportunity to slap on some Rambo gear and jump headfirst into that game. Under normal circumstances, I might not have had a problem babysitting him and his pre-pubescent fantasies... that's what I get paid to do, after all. What the hell is a chupacabra if not yet another manifestation of his fantastical neuroses? I can deal with goat suckers... I could probably even handle a pigmy-marmoset sucker if I really tried. But when fantasies can kill efficiently with anything from a flint pistol to a broadsword, when they demonstrate a polished ability to slaughter with no recognition of morality... this upsets me.

Don't get me started on that little black number either.

Afterglow indeed.

Frankly, it disgusts me. Ms. Post-Coital-Bliss herself as well as her ass-kicking cyber- clone, I mean. The woman is completely unapologetic about her lifestyle - a lifestyle which is itself one of the biggest contributors to the inability of professional women such as myself to express our femininity without sacrificing respect. She unabashedly flaunts her sexuality, and a formidable sexuality it is, which relegates women like myself (read: short, consummately professional, and sexy only to those few men who not only possess great intelligence but are actually able to clamp down on 58-22-0 long enough to appreciate great perspicacity in the so- called fairer sex) to the annals of sexual obscurity.

No one ever looks at me the way Mulder and the Men in Blue ogled at Ms. Sated Passion.

Do I sound bitter? Yes. Am I bitter? Yes. Do I loathe feeling this way? With every fiber of my being, yes. But the fact of the matter is that I abdicated my sexuality long ago in the hopes that out there (probably as far away as the ever-elusive Truth, now that I think about it), there was a man who would be more impressed by my impromptu lectures on Hemangioma- Thrombocytopenia Syndrome or xeroderma pigmentosum... a man who would fall head over heels in love with me from the moment I confidently diagnosed "cutis marmorata telangiectatica congenita".

Silly me.

Back when I had chosen my life's path I was too naive to take 58-22-0 into account.

I'm not so naive now. Hopeful and optimistic... but not naive enough to think that those feelings are anything but those of a woman who has denied herself her womanhood and hopes for fate to throw her a bone. In more ways than one...

And as for Ms. Sexual Satiation's gun-toting Spice Girl of a cyber-twin...

I am a crack shot, plus ably versed in more than one form of self-defense. I could nail a kill shot running in three inch heels through a wet cornfield on a foggy night. I can take a man three times my size down... and have enough stamina to do it again if he can manage to regain his feet, which is in and of itself a rather unlikely scenario. I can take a point-blank gunshot wound to the abdomen or even a gestating life form in my body cavity and survive. I have balls enough to shoot my own partner in the shoulder to gain his cooperation.

Did I mention that no one ogles at me the same way they do at Ms. Orgiastic Overload?

Who marched straight into the Den O' Testosterone with her head held high, brandishing a laser-blaster half her size?

Who blanketed Ms. Ebbing Tide of Ecstacy's clone and her fistful of licentious lackeys with a rock-solid shower of cyber-bullets without batting an eye?

Hello, that would be me. Dana Scully? Short redhead with a propensity for dispensing octosyllabic words and testicle-crushing glares with equal skill and frequency? Yeah, that's me. Over here, guys!

Even if I hadn't escaped from King Cock and the Teabagging Trio for a moment alone in the women's room (amazing that this place even has such a thing), they probably wouldn't have even noticed if I had screamed that last part out loud. I left them ten minutes ago, disgusted that after two deaths and a near-miss on Mulder's part they were so revved up about the stupid game. They were actually mourning its loss... as well as that of its killer villainess.

I have changed back into proper attire and managed to get most of the yellow paint off of my face. There are a few stubborn streaks left in my hair, but that action-adventure garbage I pulled did a more serious number on the hair than just the unplanned dye job. And besides... with Ms. Hurled Off the Zenith of Sexual Fulfilment around, why should I bother with my appearance at all?

I'm tempted to leave without Mulder... but he has the keys. I could ask for them, of course, but then he would wonder why I'm not being my normal pleasantly enigmatic self around the Gunmen and the last thing I need is to try to explain to him again my problems with his 58- 22-0.

So I haphazardly finger-comb my hair, tuck a few of the more individualistic strands behind my ears, gather up my discarded VR suit, and head back to find the Men, They of the Hormone-Driven Fantasy Slayers.

As I round the corner, I hear them talking... about her. Yeah, you guessed it, Ms. Endorphin Euphoria herself.

"Damn, Mulder, she was right in front of you!" Langly chortles.

"I'm not about to forget that," says Mulder dryly.

I peek around the doorjamb. Byers is studiously examining a dissected motherboard; I'm sure he's seen more motherboards during his time as a Lone Gunman than normal people have seen in a lifetime, so I think he's trying his hardest to ignore the conversation at hand. Have I ever told Byers how much I like him?

Langly is sitting backwards in a fold-out chair close to Mulder; he reaches out and claps Mulder on the shoulder. I snort. As if Mulder did anything to save his own sorry ass. Of course, if Langly clapped me on the shoulder, I might have to knock him out for treating me like "one of the guys" and I'm pretty sure he knows that.

With what looks like a beer in his hand (but surely that is to stereotypical to be true...?), Frohike gestures towards Mulder, who is sitting opposite of him, and comments, "She really did a number with that gun, hey Mulder?"

Mulder is leaned back in his chair, legs spread casually and his hands clasped behind his head. He is also wearing the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. "Let me tell you, Hickboy," he says with a smirk, "I was not looking at the gun."

Oh for godsakes. I can feel the 58-22-0 permeating the air... any second now I'm going to have to start flushing my eyes and pumping my stomach.

"You should have seen it from up here," scoffs Frohike. "57-91-0 coming through the computer screen in waves."

"High frequency ones you could taste, my man," Langly agrees heartily.

57-91-0?

Dollars per blow jobs per IQ of one Ms. Recuperative Smoke Break?

"Nothing like being up close and personal, guys," Mulder says, leaning back even farther in his chair with a self-satisfied leer.

Ouch... that last wave of Mulder's alpha male 58-22-0 could've been my undoing.

And then it occurs to me, embarrassingly belatedly. 57-91-0 is the MSDS code for estradiol... estrogen. And I roll my eyes, stifling a groan. Unbelievable. They're simply unbelievable.

Okay, so I'm short. Yeah, I dress down. And fine, so maybe the average man needs something more titillating than carnitine palmitoyltransferase deficiency or ectrodactyly- ectodermal dysplasia to pitch his tent.

But I am a woman. Everyone seems to have forgotten this fact. Just because I don't slather on two inches of mascara per lash... just because I prefer a tasteful leather coat to two strategically-placed strips of patent leather held together by shoelaces... just because I use scented bath oils and lotions instead of Eau d' Slut... just because I had to sublimate my sexuality in order to gain some respect... IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT I AM NOT -

"And did you see the way she didn't even blink when those tanks kept appearing?"

Wha-?

Frohike slaps his knee and says with an appreciative wave of his beer, "She is a woman of steel, that partner of yours, Mulder. Not even Musashi had nerves like that."

Partner of... his? That would be... me.

"Shhhhhhhhhh!" hisses Langly, clamping a hand over Frohike's mouth. "Don't speak of Him that way!"

Frohike shakes Langly off and snaps, "He's toast, Langly. Handless and headless toast."

"But he was Darryl Musashi!" Langly protests in a reverent whisper.

I stop listening and find myself leaning back against the wall, replaying the conversation in my head and highlighting the important points.

1) I was radiating 57-91-0 in high frequency waves that they could taste.

2) I am a woman of steel.

3) I have been likened by certifiable cyber-junkies to Darryl Musashi.

4) Mulder liked being up close and personal and he was not looking at my gun.

Ohhhhhh my.

I believe now is the time I change back into that VR suit, hmm?

a note on the title: C18 H24 O2 is the chemical formula of estradiol (estrogen), not testosterone. ) Thanks for reading!


End file.
